


falling stars

by majorshipper



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Godstiel: Cas as God, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majorshipper/pseuds/majorshipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He meets her gaze, eyes squinting and head titled, just like the day he looked back through those familiar blue eyes and said “I am not your father.”</i><br/>General spoilers for the end of season six, and godstiel, with mentions of events from 7x01.</p>
            </blockquote>





	falling stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liliaeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliaeth/gifts).



> Based off 's prompt from the [Fall Fandom Free-For-All](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/489753.html); _Supernatural, Castiel, outsider pov, ep 701, outsider's reactions to Cas' actions_. I kinda mangled and tweaked the prompt. Re-post, with a little bit of editing, from [here](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/489753.html?thread=30705689#t30705689).

Claire is at school when it happens.

The last period just ended, and the hallways are full of kids as she tries to navigate her way to the doors and outside. A guy bumps her, but she ignores it. They’ve been here for almost six months now, and she still doesn’t know anyone. Every time one of the girls in the cafeteria tries to talk to her, she thinks of their neighbors and how their blood splattered across their carpet. Her replies are polite, but she’s not looking for connections. She knows the charm she wears around her neck will keep demons away, but everyone she meets doesn’t have the same protection

She knows the counselor is worried about her, is concerned about her family life. Miss Williams had sat down with her and quietly asked her if she’d wanted to talk about her mom and dad. Claire wasn’t stupid, especially not now, and so she’d said no, and excused herself as soon as she could.

Sometimes she feels lonely, but most of the time she’s glad she’s not putting anyone at risk, not letting anyone into her life. The times that bug her are the times like these; everyone, it seems, is talking to someone else, and the hall is filled with noise, voices cancelling each other out. Some are happy that the school week is over, that there’s a party happening tomorrow night at Eric’s place, apparently. In all honesty, she hates high school. She wishes she could just get out now, but she knows it’s not practical. She needs a high school education, at the very least.

Besides, she can’t leave her mom. It’s been over three years, but they’re both still learning and coping. Amelia doesn’t like it when Claire come home with charms and she would like it even less if she knew the tattoo Claire has over her ribs, hidden beneath layers of clothing, but she doesn’t have to. She already spends her days either at work or shut up in her room, for the most part.

More kids bustle around her, and she has to clutch even tighter at her backpack as she avoids the mass exodus through the main doors.

Up in the corner, there’s an ancient TV that she’s never seen on before, and it’s tuned to some kind of news program. They’re showing a body being taken out of a church, an interview with a woman. Some of the students are watching it, but most are ignoring it, caught up in whatever is going through their world. She can’t make out what’s being said, but it doesn’t look like anything to do with her, or _him_ , and so she ignores it.

By the time she makes it outside, she can see her mom pulled up behind another car, waiting. She slides into the passenger seat quietly, and drops her bag onto the floorboard.

“How was school?” her mom asks. It’s the same every day, and Claire’s answer is the same every day.

“Fine,” she says, and it’s quite all the way home.

 

The TV is on in the living room while she does the dishes. She likes to know what’s happening in the world. It could be important.

Her mom’s gone to her room already, as usual. Claire has the house to herself.

She recognizes the feed from earlier at school, and perks up when she hears the woman’s description of events.

 _”…and then he just walked out. We all saw him. No beard, no robe. He was young...and...and sexy. He had a raincoat.”_

The camera switches to a stained glass window emblazoned with the image of a man in an overcoat. A very familiar man.

Dishwater sloshes all over the kitchen tiles when Claire drops the plate back into the soapy watch. Her bare feet slide on the water and tile as she turns the corner into the living room, hurriedly turning the TV up to catch the rest of whatever the newscaster is saying.

The woman anchoring carries on; _“…and this is only the latest in a whole slew of over 200 deaths in past twenty-four hours. Some are calling it an act of God, some are calling it a terrorist attack of some kind. Either way, whoever is responsible seems-“_

Claire mutes the TV and falls back against the couch.

This isn’t possible. She reaches over to her back and pulls out her laptop, smoothly booting it up and instantly heading for her boards. She can’t pretend to know Castiel as well as her father apparently did(does, she reminds herself on instinct), but she can’t imagine him doing _this_. For the first time, she’s truly glad that nobody in this city even knows who Claire’s dad is, nobody who would recognize Jimmy’s face plastered all over the news. She wonders if the two boys (the name Winchester sticks in her mind) know what’s happened to her father’s angel.

The forums are awash in posts and speculation. One person claims they saw “God” when he came to heal a hospital full of cancer patients. Another thinks “he’s doing a good thing, everyone he’s killed deserved it”. Claire stays away from the violent discussions that arise from that portion, and heads over to the theology section. There’s an interesting thread started by a woman who says she was at the first church where he struck.

 _“I don’t pretend to know what happened to us, or who he was, but I know he was important, powerful even. He might have been who he said he was. He was practically glowing, and his voice…there was something about it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if lightening had crackled out around us. Even the bench he touched was charred. I touched it after he’d left; it was just ashes.  
He just looked at the window and it changed. I can’t explain it. Maybe he is God. Maybe we’re wrong.  
What if it’s the end of the world? What if this is the second coming? What if we’ve all been left behind? What if this is Armageddon?”_

It’s not surprising; the reactions from the rest of the board range from similar points of view to the exact opposite; rage, grief, disbelief. Everywhere she goes, there’s the typical chaos of these kinds of things, the same things that happened way back when it felt like the world was ending.

Claire’s fingers itch to tell them exactly what’s happening, but even she doesn’t know herself. She surfs some more, noticing people who (she can’t tell if they’re joking) claim to be willing to offer themselves as sacrifices to this entity, others who are organizing some kind of hunting squad. She snorts at that. As little as she knows, she knows it’s nearly impossible to kill an _angel_.

 

The next day, when she gets to school, it’s all anyone is talking about. Even these kids apparently aren’t _that_ stupid.

In social studies, Miss Strong has them discuss the mysterious stranger. One girl, Beth, Claire thinks, says that he can’t be real; it’s all just a trick.

“I heard he healed a whole colony of lepers,” Todd says. “Isn’t that what God is supposed to do?”

“But what about all the people he’s killing? God shouldn’t be doing that,” Peter argues.

Todd just shakes his head. “Well, haven’t you read the Old Testament?”

Most of the kids scoff at that. Claire’s noticed that kids aren’t big on religion around here, not like they were in the last city.

“Well, I still think it’s all just some kind of conspiracy. That’s what my brother says; he thinks it’s all got to do with the eclipse and the government’s secret projects,” Heather adds.

“Claire?” Miss Strong says, and Claire instantly snaps her head up, something in her suddenly, irrationally, afraid they know _who she is_. “Do you have any thoughts?”

All eyes turn to her; even the kids in the back are paying attention now, as Claire’s silence stretches out uncomfortably. Eventually, she pulls it together enough to say something. “I think he’s just someone who thinks he’s more than he is,” she says, and it sounds like the truth that she’s tried not to think about.

That opens a whole new can of worms, but the discussion moves on without her. By the end of class, it seems that everyone has an opinion, but most are disbelieving. It doesn’t surprise Claire. If she hadn’t seen (felt) Castiel herself, she would have never believed it, either. People are like that.

 

The world is ending, apparently, and yet they still go on the field trip they’ve been planning for the past three weeks. The bus isn’t big, but there’s enough space that Claire has a wide berth around her. Two seats in front of her, two guys are talking about the warped locker between the girl’s and boy’s locker rooms and how you can apparently watch the track team changing if you angle it just right, and behind her, two of the kids who actually chose to take theology rather than just being assigned it are talking about Castiel and what he’s doing.

The ride is boring, and they’re half way out of town when they’re forced to stop. Apparently there’s a huge wreck on one of the exits, and they’re not going anywhere. Aimlessly, Claire looks out the window. There’s the flat land she’s used to and the dead-looking dry brittle grass that she knows is everywhere right now. A grass fire happened just last month, only a few miles outside of town, not that far from here. Her eyes follow the land out towards where she knows their destination is.

And there, her eyes are drawn to a man. A man in a tan trench coat, just standing there, watching.

Her heart clenches.

He meets her gaze, eyes squinting and head titled, just like the day he looked back through those familiar blue eyes and said _“I am not your father.”_

His head tilts, almost benevolently, in her direction, like he’s doing her a favor.

Someone else notices, and the bus erupts in kids clamoring to catch a glimpse of the mystery man, and the bus swerves as the driver pulls them over, all protocol out the window, but he’s already gone, vanished like he was never there.

Every person on the bus starts talking at once, from their teacher to the driver to the boys in front of Claire. She just settles further back into the bus’s hard seats and closes her eyes to the chaos that swirls around her.

The field trip is canceled for that day. And that night, when the largest private collection of disputed religious manuscripts burns down in a completely unexpected and exceptionally violent prairie fire, the whole point of the trip becomes irrelevant.


End file.
